After a pretty good opening set of shows, I was looking forward to the following second season's exploits of the teenage aliens (and their human friends) living in a small town in New Mexico.  In this season of Roswell, the aliens that are living among us learn more about themselves, encounter new threats, and discover the results of not being careful when you have sex.  There's still the teenage angst from the first season, and the on-again/off-again relationships between the various cast members, but this season doesn't have the charm that embodied the first one.

The show starts up three months after the first season ended.  Liz and Kyle have been away for the summer, and the rest of the gang have been having a quiet summer.  Liz was really effected by the revelations from last season, and when she gets back into town she doesn't even bother to look up Max.  After all, he's destined to be with someone else isn't he?

Nasedo has been using his powers to dismantle the government agency that was causing so many problems in the past, and the ominous threat implied in last year's season finale hasn't come to pass.  Yet.  But when Nasedo turns up dying at Max's window with the warning "They are among you." Things get bad pretty quickly.

This show still has a lot of continuity, and there are several twists that occur even early on in the season which keep viewers interested, but the show has a different feel this time around.  One of the things that I really liked about the first season is that there was an interesting mystery that was the show's driving force, and they actually wrapped it up in the season finale.  However this presents a problem: what do you follow it up with in the next season.  Though the writers make a valiant effort to continue including the enigmas and ciphers that gave the original series it's kick, to a large extent they fail.   The questions and puzzles that pop up this time around just aren't a effective as they were in the first season.  Part of the reason is because they include too many mysteries, jumping from one to the next in fairly rapid order, sometimes without satisfactorily resolving the first one.

The show has a different feel to it this time around.  With the ratings not where the network wanted them, the show is being pushed to become more like Buffy.  Instead of government agents and the police, the group in now having to deal with extraterrestrial menaces.  While I liked some of the alien monsters, they didn't fit into the show seamlessly, and felt a little forced.

That's because this show isn't Buffy, and you can't turn it into that show.  Roswell never had that hipper-than-thou dialog that Buffy scripts were filled with. The characters don't have a witty quip on their lips ready to turn any situation into a comic moment.  This gives the show a more realistic  feel.  That's why people could relate to the characters, even if they were from another planet.  This season's constant threat of alien monsters took away from that real feeling, and made the show feel awkward in several places.

That's not to say that their weren't any good show, there were.   A Roswell Christmas Carol was very good on several levels, and Cry Your Name throws an interesting twist into things that I didn't see coming.  Viva Las Vegas had a good amount of humor, and was one of my favorite episodes in the season.

I have to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with this show.  Some parts of it are interesting and fun, while other aspects are really stupid.  The problem is that it's not that some shows are good and others bad, most programs have a mixture of entertaining and moronic elements.   I think the blame lies on the shoulders of the writers.  Though there are flashes of greatness in the scripts, when taken as a whole they are fairly mediocre.  There are many plot holes throughout the season, and many things aren't explained.  The scripts rely on coincidence too often and often don't think situations all the way through.  For example, in an early episode a suspected alien antagonist is able to knock Michael down without even trying.  So the aliens go to confront this menace with the intention of killing him.  But they don't bring Tess, one of their most powerful members!  Why would they do that??

Another flaw with the scripts, albeit a more minor one, is that the writers put science in their scripts, but have no idea what they are talking about.  In one episode Max climbs into a cyclotron while it is in operation.  Apparently this is one of those rare instruments where they don't bother to pull a hard vacuum on the chamber before accelerating the electrons.  It was also interesting the Max suffered no ill effects while standing in the electron stream which was traveling at relativistic speeds, nor from the microwaves generated by the Klystons.  I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Another pitfall the writers fall into is the way they write themselves out of corners.  If they are stuck for a resolution, they just make one of the aliens more powerful.  Without giving away anything, near the end of the season one of the cast gets a boost in powers that is just too unbelievable without any warning or explanation. It was as if the writers said, lets just end this any way we can.  It really left a sour taste in my mouth.

Like the last set, this season comes on six DVDs encased in thinpacks and stored in a thin pressboard slipcase.

Audio:

The 5.1 English mix for this show is very good. The sound was very full and rich. There is a good amount of bass, especially in the suspenseful parts where ominous low music would slowly swell up from the background. The incidental noises, crickets at night, street noises, etc. were clear an easy to pick out, but not overpowering. Full use was made of the soundstage, with music and effects frequently coming from the rear speakers. I was pleasantly surprised at how good these discs sounded.

Note: Like the first season set, there is an ominous statement on the back of this slipcase too. It says that these DVDs "Include new cutting-edge songs selected by the original Roswell music team!" This means that they were not able to secure the rights for some of the music used in the series when it originally aired.  The music that was included did not sound out of place, and fit well.  If you would like a list of the changes, DVDTalk member PHMustang2000 has created an excellent web page that tracks all the differences.  You can find a link at the bottom of this review.

Video:

Like the first season, the video for this show, presented in anamorphic widescreen, was very good. There were a lot of night scenes and details were easy to pick out. The colors were accurate and looked fine. There were only a few minor encoding defects, mostly involving pixelation of smoke, which is very hard to encode without some defects. A nice picture.

Extras:

Like the first season, there are a good number of extras included with this set.

Commentaries:  There aren't as many commentaries as were included with the previous set, and none of the actors give their thoughts, but the three commentaries are still insightful.  Series Co-Executive Producer and Writer Ronald D. Moore comments on two shows, Ask Not and Cry Your Name.  He talks about the changes in the show between seasons, and mentions the friction between the show and WB execs who want some aspects of the show altered. He also talks about the decision to kill of a character and why it was made.

There is also a commentary by Executive Producer/Writer Jason Katims and Director Patrick Norrris on the episode A Roswell Christmas where the pair talk about the idea of the Christmas Nazi, and how they were trying to make the all of the characters fit in a little bit more.  None of these commentaries were especially interesting, but each one did give some insight to the goings on behind the scenes.

Here With Me: Making of Roswell Season 2: This featurette is over half an hour long, and was the best bonus material included with the set.  It has various cast and crew members commenting on a number of shows from the second season.  Some fun stuff included and they talk about how the characters interacted and how the writers wanted the humans to have something to do in the series besides just tag along.  A good look at the show, and not one of those HBO making of pieces of fluff.

Storyboard to Scene: A two minute comparison between the actual scene and the storyboards for the episode Wipeout.

Art of Composing Roswell: Composer Joe Williams talks about how he created the background music for a particular scene, followed by the completed version of the segment he discusses.
 
The Shiri and Majandra Show: This 11 minute featurette had the two female leads talking about their characters, how they felt about them, and how they went to the producers and asked for some changes.  It was a little long for me, but it had some intersting parts.

A Little Something Extra for the Fans: This is the least interesting piece of bonus material.  It's basically a montage reel set to music that shows the relationships between the major members of the show. *yawn*
 

Final Thoughts:

While this season of Roswell had some interesting villains and monsters, the tone of the show changed, and not for the better.  The show went down hill in this season, partially because of pressure from the network to make the show more like other successful teen SF shows, but mainly because the writing wasn't up to snuff.  There were just too many plot holes and inconsistences and they took away from my enjoyment of the series.  If you thought the first season was wonderful, this set is really worth picking up.  You'll still get a good amount of enjoyment out of it.  If you are like me and thought the first season was okay though flawed, this might not be the set for you.  I felt that the weakness of the first season were magnified this time around.  Still not a horrible show, it would be best to pick this one up as a rental.